ETH moves up university ranking

The ETH has moved up from 10th to 7th place in the QS World University Rankings, making it the best university in continental Europe. It came in behind four American universities – Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Stanford University, Harvard University and California Institute of Technology (Caltech) – and the universities of Oxford and Cambridge in Britain.

While the ETH regularly secures high positions in university rankings, its latest is the “highest ranking it has achieved thus far in the highly competitive modern league tables”, according to a statement from the university. It performed particularly well for international headcounts, faculty citations and academic reputation, but scored top marks in almost every category.  

“The ranking reflects a great team effort from the entire ETH community,” commented ETH president Lino Guzzella. He highlighted that the ETH is one of the few publicly funded institutions in the top ten, explaining that the result reflects “the support and commitment of the Swiss society”.

Overall, nine Swiss universities feature in the ranking – seven of them in the top 200. The Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL) scored 22nd place, the University of Zurich 78th, the University of Geneva 108th, the University of Bern 139th, the University of Lausanne 149th and the University of Basel 160th.

The QS World University Rankings launched in 2004 and now ranks 1,233 universities.